For Adolf Hitler, whose private residence was located on the second floor of Prinzregentenplatz 16, Prinzregentenstraße met his expectations of a boulevard that always was an expression of power and political importance for him. In this respect, he provided the impetus towards its redevelopment. First, the House of German Art was built from 1933-1937 at the northern end of the street. The building with its endless portico, described by art historians as being much too wide, sealed off the English Garden and thus interrupted the smooth transition of garden courtyard and the city. Furthermore, several town houses were destroyed, such as those next to the Bavarian National Museum. In 1937 the Luftgaukommando, now serving as the offices of the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology since the 1950s, was inaugurated. In this way Prinzregentenstraße lost its lightness and for severity which still dominates. In the third section between Wilhelm-Tell-straße and Brucknerstraße, were built between 1941-1934 residential blocks, which were conceived as Versuchsbauten for an unrealised Südstadt, flanked at both ends by square air-raid shelters, which form part of the building block. Südstadt was to have been extended as a model Nazi estate with around 14,500 residential units which would have been provided from the outset with high bunkers, either as found at the Versuchsbauten, or in the middle of the building with direct access from the apartments. The Versuchsbauten are today virtually unchanged, one of the two seven-story bunkers now containing an art exhibition centre since 1993 featuring national and international individual pieces and group exhibitions.

House of German Art(Haus der Deutschen Kunst)

Hitler at the opening of the House of German Art

The House of German Art was described by Hitler as "the first beautiful building of the new Reich" and "a temple for genuine and eternal German art." In designing the structure in 1933, Hitler already revealed his plan for eventual war by providing for an air raid shelter in the basement. Irreverent locals nicknamed the building "the Athens railway station" and "a sausage stand."

How Prinzregentstraße was intended to look, with the Bavarian Prime Minister's residence in the background. In
1938 Hitler desired that a house of German architecture should be built
opposite the House of German Art. It would have exhibited architecture
and art. The building would have been a simplified variant of the House
of German Art, without a freestreppe, and the colonnades would have been
integrated into the edifice of the building.The project did not go
beyond preliminary drafts.

Troost and Hitler in front of a model of the building in 1933

Josef Wilk's Porträt Prof. Troost showing the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in the background, now at the Deutsches Historisches Museum. Behind is Adolf Wissel's Kahlenberger Bauernfamilie which had been included in the Großen Deutschen Kunstausstellung of 1939 at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst : Farm Family From Kahlenberg.

Golden model presented by Hermann Göring to Hitler on the latter's 50th birthday

Internationally
the building was highly appreciated during the construction period. At
the world exhibition Paris 1937, a model of the House of German Art was a
central exhibition of the German House. Gerdy Troost received the Grand
Prize of the Architecture Jury. The fact that Christoph Vitali,
director of the Haus der Kunst, described the building as an example of "wonderful
museum architecture" and praised the architectural
quality of the exhibition rooms, the beauty and balance of proportions
and spatial sequence, and the lighting which further contributes to the quality of the
monumental spaces. On the other hand, architecture historian Winfried Nerdinger argued that this ignores the ideological and systematic framework of Nazi construction. Vitali
justified his statement in retrospect with the fact that the walls are
not to blame. It was the fault of those who had been responsible for the
work from 1937 to 1944.

During construction of the building. The double-axis symmetrical building is in the style of a reduced neoclassicism, 175 metres long and 50 metres wide, based on a continuous grid constructed of steel beams clad with stone slabs so that the building looks like a stone building. The main entrance is in the middle of the south façade, further entrances lead from the middle of the north side to the north gallery and the narrow sides into the side wings. A 21-axle portico of colossal, non-desalted columns, occupying the entire building height, is enclosed in each of the longitudinal sides, each of which is terminated by corner pillars. The portico on the southern side of Prinzregentenstraße was originally a full-width staircase, which was reduced in the course of road reconstruction in 1971. In the rear of the building the ground floor is accessible on the ground floor due to a drop in the terrain. There, a staircase leads to the level of the ground floor. The two vestibules and the stairs provide a total depth of 75 metres. The base area is covered with Nagelfluh, the exterior façades with limestone from the Donautal near Kelheim. The stairs and outer floor surfaces are made of granite. In front of the building stands a series of linden trees, which are a traditional tree in used in Munich in its urban development since the 1960s.

Hitler viewing the progress on the construction of the House of German Art with architects Professor Gall and Albert Speer. The right shows the plaque engraved on bronze over the entrance reading "Die Kunst ist eine erhabene und zum Fanatismus Verpflichtende Mission" (Art is an Ennobling Mission Demanding Fanaticism). After Hitler became Reichskanzler in January 1933, he gave the order for a new planning personally to Paul Ludwig Troost, who had already converted the NSDAP head office for Braunschweig to Hitler. The site in the old botanical garden was not sufficient for Hitler's monumental plans. He ordered the new entrance to the southern entrance to the English Garden. Originally, Hitler wanted to build a "Parteiforum" there, which would consist of the House of German Art, a Museum of Contemporary History, and a House of the Party-Statthalter, arranged around a representative square. Troost rejected these plans because their space requirements would interfere too strongly with the English Garden. At this early stage of his career, Hitler was still able to convince himself of professional arguments and limited the project to the House of German Art at this point. In Nazi cultural policy, the building was designed as the decisive exhibition building of the German Reich. The Kunsthalle, planned from 1936 onwards, should not be in competition with the House of German Art. This should also restore the role of Munich as the leading art city in Germany, which was the capital of German art for the Munich capital. The planning was expanded to a new design of the environment. Prinzregentenstraße, which was originally built under "picturesque aspects", was demolished, and the development on the south side of Von-der-Thann-Strasse at the financial centre was demolished. On the north side the Jugendstil façade of the Elvira studio had to be simplified. The Von-der-Thann-Straße was also widened and expanded.For funding, NSDAP Gauleiter Adolf Wagner organised an initiative of Bavarian and German industrialists with the invitation to give Hitler the building. He was able to submit his first pledges to Hitler on 20 April 1933 on his birthday. As the bearer of the house, an institution of public law was founded. The constituent meeting took place in June 1933. The statutes of the Anstalthaus der Deutschen Kunst were formally adopted on July 14, 1933.

The Haus der Deutschen Kunst ("House of German Art") at Prinzregentenstrasse 1 was constructed from 1934 to 1937 following plans of architect Paul Ludwig Troost as the Third Reich's first monumental propaganda building. Its inaugural exhibition was the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung ("Great German art exhibition"), which was intended as an edifying contrast to the concurrent Entartete Kunst exhibition.

Numerous activities were scheduled for that day, such as a procession through town depicting “2,000 years of German culture.” In the presence of the Führer, a performance of Tristan und Isolde in the Munich National Theatre opened the festivities. The dedication of the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in the Prinzregentenstrasse took place on July 19. Hitler had laid the cornerstone there in 1933. The new building was to serve as a replacement for the old “Glass Palace,” that had been an art gallery located at the old Botanical Garden. In former times, art collections had been exhibited in the building until it had been completely destroyed by a fire in 1931. The opening of an art exhibition complemented the dedication of the new building. The Essential Hitler(489)

Hitler at the official cornerstone laying October 15, 1933. After Troost died in 1934, the construction was continued
by his co-worker Leonhard Gall with the widow Gerdy Troost.

Hitler and Himmler at the opening, 1937.

Hitler formally opened the ”House of German Art” in Munich in a drab, pseudoclassic building which he had helped design and which he described as ”unparalleled and inimitable” in its architecture. In this first exhibition of Nazi art were crammed some nine hundred works, selected from fifteen thousand submitted, of the worst junk this writer has ever seen in any country. Hitler himself made the final selection and, according to some of the party comrades who were with him at the time, had become so incensed at some of the paintings accepted by the Nazi jury presided over by Adolf Ziegler, a mediocre painter who was president of the Reich Chamber of Art, that he had not only ordered them thrown out but had kicked holes with his jack boot through several of them. ”I was always determined,” he said in a long speech inaugurating the exhibition, ”if fate ever gave us power, not to discuss these matters [of artistic judgement] but to make decisions.” And he had made them. In his speech – it was delivered on July 18, 1937 – he laid down the Nazi line for ”German art”:Works of art that cannot be understood but need a swollen set of instructions to prove their right to exist and find their way to neurotics who are receptive to such stupid or insolent nonsense will no longer openly reach the German nation. Let no one have illusions! National Socialism has set out to purge the German Reich and our people of all those influences threatening its existence and character . . . With the opening of this exhibition has come the end of artistic lunacy and with it the artistic pollution of our people . . .

Hitler speaking at the opening of the third "Great German Art Exhibition" July 16, 1939 in the Ehrenhalle. From 1937 until 1944, the hall was used
exclusively for opening exhibitions and holding press conferences, and every
year the Nazis would meet here for the Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung. It was Hitler who had determined that the plinths and the wall and pillar
covering of the three-nave sky-lit hall should be clad in blood-red
marble from Tegernsee. The omnipresence of the colour red, so
prominent on the Nazi flag, served to reinforce the
ubiquity of the National Socialist world view. The monumental exhibition hallis not a specific, Nazi style, but Troost simplified the formative language of neoclassicism from its pre-war period before the Great War, reduced details and enlarged them into a monumental one. According to his own account, in contrast to "modern practicality," Troost wanted to build a "building sensed from the soul of the people," "noble proportions and solid material" should give the construction "the character of a temple of art."Troost and Hitler repeatedly claimed to create a "temple" or "sanctuary" of art. The architectural elements portico and colonnade were therefore borrowed from ancient architecture, but they remain backdrops. The excessive emphasis on the horizontal is counterbalanced against contrasting verticals, contrary to classical or classical architecture, but remains unilateral. Therefore, an "intrusive, overwhelming character" of the structure remains.The Dehio Handbook describes the effect: "In its formal hardness, unadorned monumentality, the solidity of craftsmanship and materiality, the uniform arrangement of members of the body and its importance in political life," Haus der Kunst "is a programmatic example of the self-representation of the Hitler regime Of architecture. "

Hitler speaking in the Ehrenhalle July 18, 1937, and the site today. This central hall, originally designated as an "honorary hall", adjoins centrally to the entrance and leads through to the north gallery. To the left and right of each are a large, stretched exhibition hall surrounded by a series of smaller rooms. These surfaces, which make up the central component, reach the full height of the building. On the south side lie the administrative areas, in the north the former restaurant, today Nordgalerie. Only these parts of the building are two-storey, with exhibition rooms on the upper floor. The rooms in full height, as well as the exhibition rooms on the upper floor, were illuminated by lamps. The total exhibition space is 5,040 m². The exhibition rooms on the ground floor can be divided or assigned as desired, so that several exhibitions can take place at the same time. From the beginning, the building had several elevators, a complex heating and air-conditioning system, and an air-raid shelter which has been used for exhibitions since 2011. The floors are covered with Solnhofen limestone and door handles made of Jura marble. In the hall of honour, floors, staircases and claddings are made of a red marble from the Marmorwerk Saalburg whilst the doors are lined from Tegernseer marble.

Exhibition from the time of the Third Reich and now, featuring "Svayambh," a gigantic sculpture by Anish Kapoor; the gallery now displays anything but German art. Leaning against a wall displaying the history of the building inside is the dedication to the gallery's original sponsors which used to feature much more prominently. The eighteen founders were, according to this memorial plaque:
Hermann Schmitz (IG Farben), August von Finck (Merck, Fink & Co.),
Robert Bosch (Boschwerke), Friedrich Flick (Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke),
Adolf Haeuser (IG Farben) , August Diehn (Deutsche Kalisyndikat),
Theodor Feise (Kaliwerke Friedrichshall), Fritz Rechberg (family group
of the Textilbranche and many supervisory boards, eg Commerzbank), Jacob
Hasslacher (Vereinigte Stahlwerke), Paul Müller (Dynamit Nobel AG),
Gustav Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach Kruppwerke), Wilhelm von Opel (Adam
Opel AG), Ludwig Roselius (Kaffeehandels Aktiengesellschaft), August
Rosterg (Wintershall AG), Willy Sachs (Fichtel & Sachs), Karl
Friedrich von Siemens (Siemens AG), Ludwig Schuon (BASF) Philipp
Reemtsma (Reemtsma). They brought together three of the original
five million Reichsmark, another 400,000 marks the city of Munich.
The construction industry and the Reichsbahn. A large number of
small and medium-sized donations of money and money increased the total
sum of the funds raised by supporters to just over 10 million. As
construction costs finally rose to 12 million marks, donations were not
enough. Therefore, an interest-free loan from the Deutsche Gesellschaft
für Öffentliche Öffentliche was collected, despite the fact that its
conditions were not met.

One artist honoured at the Haus der Kunst was Ai Wei Wei, an artist who knows only too well the constant threat of living under a capricious, totalitarian regime.

The rear of the building

Then and now, photoshopped on the right with Hitler giving his speech at the opening, in which he expressed his great satisfaction that he, and not his political opponents, had erected the building:

In 1931, the National Socialist takeover was still so far off in the distant future that there was no way of foreseeing the construction of a new exhibition palace for the Third Reich. In fact, for a while it did seem as though the “men of November” would provide an edifice for the exhibition of art in Munich that would have had as little to do with German art as it, conversely, reflected the Bolshevist affairs and circumstances of their time. Many of you perhaps still recall the plans for that building that was intended for the old Botanical Garden that has now been given such a beautiful design. A building quite difficult to define. An edifice that could just as easily have been a Saxon thread factory as the market hall of a mid-sized city—or perhaps a train station, or then again even an indoor swimming pool. I need not press upon you how I suffered at the thought back then that the first misfortune would be fol- lowed by yet another. And that therefore, in this case in particular, I was truly glad, really happy about the faint-hearted lack of determination on the part of my political opponents at the time. In it lay the only chance of ultimately saving the erection of a palace for art exhibitions in Munich to become the first great undertaking of the Third Reich.

After the war, the building was used by the American occupation forces as an officer's mess; in that time, the building came to be known as the "P1", a shortening of its street address.The building's origins can still be seen such as in regards to the swastika-motif mosaics in the ceiling panels of its front portico. The Second World War left the building almost undamaged. During the American occupation, the building was used as an officer's casino with an entertainment program. According to an anecdote, a basketball field was created in the building so that during the reopening as a museum, markings were still visible on the floor. In the summer of 1946 the house was the first exhibition after the war to house a special exhibition of individual works from the Alte Pinakothek and the Internationale Jugendbuchausstellung. In 1947 the exhibition "French Painting from Impressionism to the Present" took place at the instigation of the American military government with the support of the French Direction de l'Education Publique. From 1946 to the end of 1948, a permanent trade exhibition took place in a part of the eastern wing under the title Bavarian Export Show, in which Bavarian companies presented their products predominantly for American import companies.

"The New Age: Sacrifice, Faith and Loyalty" section during the July 18, 1937 "Two Thousand Years of German Culture" parade.

Excerpt from Nazi propaganda film of the summer 1939 German Art Festival in Munchen. On 15 and 16 October 1939, the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung inside the Haus der Deutschen Kunst was complemented by the monumental Tag der deutschen Kunst celebration of "2,000 years of Germanic culture" where luxuriously and pretentiously draped floats (one of them carrying a 5 meter tall golden Nazi Reichsadler) and thousands of actors in historical costumes paraded down Prinzregentenstraße for hours in the presence of Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Albert Speer, Robert Ley, Reinhard Heydrich, and many other other high-ranking Nazis, with minor events taking place in the Englischer Garten nearby.Some stills from the film:

Images from the Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung in 1939 and 1940.

Hitler speaking inside the so-called "Ehrenhalle" [Hall of Honour] at the official opening of the third "Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung" July 16, 1939. The building was opened on 18 July 1937 with the first "Great German Art Exhibition" on the second "Day of German Art" with a monumental pageant, "2000 Years of German Culture". The first director was Karl Kolb. The following day, the exhibition Entartete Kunst began in the gallery building at the Hofgarten (today's German theatre museum). Both exhibitions were coordinated by the Munich Academy Professor Adolf Ziegler. To this end, he held positions both in the Reichskulturkammer and in Joseph Goebbels Reichsministerium für Volksunklärung und Propaganda. Until 1939 the "Day of German Art" took place every year, during which Adolf Hitler appeared as a speaker. The "Great German Art Exhibition", which was conceived as an annual sales exhibition, took place until 1944 and attracted several hundred thousand visitors during its many months' duration because its visit was part of the program of the National Socialist mass organizations.In spite of the claim to be a temple of "German art", thus of national socialist art, the concept was designed commercially from the outset: there was an extensive gastronomy. All the exhibitions were mainly for sale, with Hitler appearing as the main buyer and acting as chief patron.

At the opening on July 16, 1939

One of the large exhibition halls of the "Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung" 1940 Rooms 22, 2 and 31Porträt des Führers by Fritz Erler, 1939 and the interior today

Prince Carl-Palais is the official residence of the Bavarian Prime Minister; here German president Paul von Hindenburg and Prime Minister Heinrich Held leave the palace, 12 August 1925.

Hitler at the opening of the House of German Art with the the Prinz-Carl-Palais in the background, where Mussolini stayed in 1938 during the Munich Conference. Mussolini came here for the last time on September 18, 1943 after being rescued four days earlier in a remarkable coup de main at the Gran Sasso where il Duce had been interned at a mountain hotel, and brought to Germany.

Mussolini was brought to the Prince Carl Palace in Munich, from where he addressed the Italian people in a radio address that evening. During Hitler’s years of triumph in 1937 and 1938, Mussolini had always set up quarters at the Prince Carl Palace. But his speech now lacked the enthusiasm of earlier years. Mussolini cared about only one thing, his mistress Clara Petacci. He would not rest until Hitler finally had ϟϟ Obergruppenführer Sepp Dietrich bring her from Italy.

As seen from the photo from 1937, the reichsadler that had been added during the regime has been removed without any trace.In 1924 this became the residence of the Bavarian Prime Ministers.

Surrounded by destruction in 1948. On the right is the ruined shell at the end of the war and today, restored with the Nazi eagle removed

Munich was one of the five “Führer Cities” in the planned Greater German Reich, whose urban fabric was to be radically transformed. The monumental plans, which were drawn up in close consultation with Hitler himself, involved the construction of a grand avenue, the Great Axis, which was to be 2.5 kilometres long and 120 metres wide and lined with over-dimensioned cultural and prestige buildings, as well as a six-kilometre east-west axis. The city was to be visually dominated by a huge dome structure for the new main railway station and a 200-metre-high “Monument to the Movement”. Planned completion date for the building work was 1950, but in fact only a few of these projects were ever actually built. Those that were include the redevelopment of Königsplatz with the nearby Nazi Party buildings and the widening of Von-der-Tann-Straße to create a connection between the Haus der Kunst and the party headquarters on Königsplatz. The above shows the construction of the altstadtringtunnel at Von-der-Tann-Straße in front of the Prinz-Carl-Palais, completed in February 1937; the Haus der Kunst is on the left. Hofgartenarkaden

The propaganda exhibition of "Degenerate Art" was organised by the Nazis and opened in the Hofgarten arcades on July 19 1937, ending in November of that year. The day before had been opened the "First Great German Art Exhibition" allowing the regime's conception of art to be compared with what it deemed 'degenerate.' The Munich exhibition was followed by a travelling exhibition under the same title to other twelve cities, displaying some other exhibits until 1941. The Munich exhibition was organised by Adolf Ziegler, who also led the previous seizures from collections and museums such as the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, the Folkwang Museum in Essen, the Kunsthalle in Hamburg, the Landesmuseum in Hanover and the new division of the National Gallery in Berlin for use in the show, of which 600 were then actually shown. They represented the maligned art styles of Expressionism, Dadaism, Surrealism and New Objectivity. To achieve a "chaotic" effect, the works were hung in the showrooms in a deliberately disadvantageous perspective and provided with abusive slogans on the walls. The exhibition, according to official figures, saw 2,009,899 visitors and was at that time one of the most visited exhibitions of modern art.

Donald Kuspit, discussing the ‘Entarte (sic) Kunst’ exhibition of 1937, has suggested that Hitler ‘had a vested interest in repression’ and a corresponding wish to exalt clear and unified images over those requiring debate and textual exegesis, and which therefore introduced the possibility of uncertainty. Hitler’s own words on this exhibition reveal a wish to erect a barrier between image and text: ‘Works of art that cannot be understood but need a swollen set of instructions to prove their right to exist...will no longer openly reach the German nation.’ When ‘art’ becomes propaganda, then image and text are not required to explain each other, but instead to participate in a mutual objectification.

In front of the former site of the 'Exhibition of Degenerate Art' which had officially opened July 19, 1937 at the same time with the first large one German art exhibition in the House of German art.

According to William Shirer, the exhibition was an humiliating failure:

In another part of the city in a ramshackle gallery that had to be reached through a narrow stairway was an exhibition of ”degenerate art” which Dr. Goebbels had organised to show the people what Hitler was rescuing them from. It contained a splendid selection of modern paintings – Kokoschka, Chagall and expressionist and impressionist works. The day I visited it, after panting through the sprawling House of German Art, it was crammed, with a long line forming down the creaking stairs and out into the street. In fact, the crowds besieging it became so great that Dr. Goebbels, incensed and embarrassed, soon closed it.

In a mere two weeks between 600 and 700 works from around Germany were seized, dispatched to Munich and hung. The show opened on 19 July 1937 with some 650 works by 112 'art stutterers' from thirty-two public museums on display. It included examples from all the major schools of German painting and sculpture- Expressionism, Verism, Abstraction, Bauhaus, Dada, New Objectivity- and all the major artists. Although he had inspected the collection beforehand, Hitler did not deign to put in a public appearance once the exhibition opened. But he inaugurated it vicariously the day before in a raging speech. '...The end of madness in German art and, with it, the cultural destruction of our people has begun,' he proclaimed. 'From this moment we shall conduct a merciless war against the remnants of our cultural disintegration.' On he sputtered, reviling 'the cliques of chatterboxes, dilettantes and art swindlers.'Like enemy prisoners being thrown to the lions in the Colosseum, the victims were to be seen and mocked by the crowd before being consumed. The show was deigned to demonstrate that Modernist art was not simply ugly, indecent and deranged but that it also directly assaulted traditional social mores by disparaging motherhood, military heroism, religion and whatever was healthy, clean and chaste.Hitler's criteria- post1910 German works- were generally followed, though stretched to include such adoptive Germans as Chagall and Jawlensky, and two non-Germans., Mondrian and Munch. The work by the good Nordic Munch caused such ideological indigestion that after a few days the room where it hung was closed. The paintings, presented in a way to heighten ridicule, were not so much displayed as plastered helter-skelter on the walls, though this may have resulted partly from the haste with which the show was assembled. To leave no doubt about their iniquity, the works were labelled with such propagandistic slogans as 'madness becomes a method', 'nature as seen by sick minds' and 'a insult to German womanhood.' Ensuring that no one could have the slightest doubt about the iniquity of the works, it is said that actors were sent to the exhibit to make raucous fun of what they saw.It was the biggest blockbuster show of all time. Hitler ordered that entry should be without charge and encouraged the public to attend. And attend it did. One million people went in the first six weeks alone and more than two million in the remaining six months in Munich. Another million or so saw the exhibition when it travelled to twelve other cities between February 1938 and April 1941. By all accounts spectators went to bury, not to praise. 'It became increasingly obvious to me that most people had come to see the exhibition with the intention of disliking everything,' it was later commented. Some non-Nazis, some non-Germans also applauded. A Boston art critic commented, 'There are probably plenty of people- art lovers- in Boston, who will side with Hitler in this particular purge.' The Fuehrer was enormously pleased with the popular response. It appeared to prove his point that Modernism was an elitist phenomenon that had lost meaning for the great mass of the public. It further seemed to support his belief in 'the people as the judge of art.' So gratified was he, in fact, that at his direction a pamphlet with illustrations of the works accompanied by hostile commentary was published and widely circulated. He had achieved his purpose. The event was a stunning demonstration of his power to crush what he opposed. In so doing, he brought to an end the most exciting school of painting and sculpture in modern German history.

However, the 1938 law that allowed the Nazis to seize thousands of other Modernist artworks deemed “degenerate” because Hitler viewed them as un-German or Jewish in nature remains on the books to this day.

Schackgalerie

Named after Adolf Friedrich von Schack who, after settling at Munich, was made member of the academy of sciences. Here he began to collect a gallery of pictures, containing masterpieces of Romanticism with painters such as Anselm Feuerbach, Moritz von Schwind, Arnold Böcklin, Franz von Lenbach, Carl Spitzweg, Carl Rottmann, etc., and which, though bequeathed by him to the Emperor William II, still remains at Munich. The building itself was designed by Max Littmann in 1907 next to the former diplomatic mission of Prussia in the Prinzregentenstrasse and still houses the museum since the kaiser decided to keep the collection in Munich. Here it is shown shortly after completion, bearing the scars of the war in 1946, and today. On February 1 1939 Hitler brought together art treasures that were formerly part of the Schack Gallery in Munich with works of art from the same period that previously had been in the possession of the Bavarian State. These objects of art were to be integrated in a permanent collection renamed the “Schack Gallery of German masters of the 19th century,” with its seat in Munich.The State of Bavaria would become the official proprietor of the gallery. The Bavarian Minister- President was to administer the collection “in accordance with the Führer’s instructions.” The new Schack gallery was to find a permanent home in the exhibition halls at the Königlicher Platz.Luftgaukommando(VII Regional HQ of the Luftwaffe)

At 250m long, the building at Prinzregentenstraße 24 still bears visible signs of its former military use. Above the former officers' entrance remains the Luftwaffe eagle with its spread wings holding the residual traces of a swastika. The main entrance is flanked by two eagles. Sixteen helmets adorn the window gables at the top of the five-story tower. On the east side one still encounters the stylised swastikas adorning the wrought iron grill the building. From 1938-40 the eastern part of the building was occupied by the Air Force Command. From 1940, the entire building served as the command post of the Air District Headquarters, which was engaged in the comprehensive development of air defence and the live experiments on concentration camp prisoners. The expansion of Prinzregentenstraße to a continuous large transport route and shuttle to the Munich-Riem airport saw the Hubertusbrunnen relocated and the park covered over. Today the former dining area serves as a library. The historic rooms have been left largely in its original state. Today it houses the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology.

Topping-out ceremony May 12, 1937 and today.

Built between1935-1936 by the architect German Bestelmayer, this building still displays the steel helmets, eagles, and, incredibly (and illegally) swastika window grills today:

Inside the Nazi eagle still greets visitors, albeit sans swastika.

At night the grills are actually lit up from within the building even though the German Strafgesetzbuch in § 86a outlaws "use of symbols of unconstitutional organisations" as used on this government building:

right across the street is the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum

According to Jonathan Petropoulos in The Faustian Bargain - The Art World in Nazi Germany "many Jewish galleries, like the renowned Bernheimer firm in Munich, were taken over by Aryan trustees. As the confiscated works mounted up, [museum director Ernst] Buchner cooperated with the Gestapo by making rooms available in the Bavarian National Museum."

Over the side door a Nazi eagle remains, missing only its swastika whilst at the other end a wreath is shorn of its offending symbol as well. This is within a wing at the southeast corner added by German Bestelmeyer in 1937. Bestelmeyer served as a professor at the Technical University, and from 1934 until his death in 1942 he was President of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. He had been an outspoken advocate of traditionalist, völkisch architecture. He was a member of the Munich School to which Paul Troost also belonged. In 1928, with Paul Schultze-Naumburg, Paul Schmitthenner and others, he founded "The Block", a group of architects in opposition to the modernist group The Ring. He was singled out for praise in 1931 by Schultze-Naumburg and in 1934, after the Nazis came to power, wrote an article in which he endorsed Alexander von Senger's criticism of Le Corbusier, described 1920s architecture as having become "soulless", and rejected flat roofs as unsuited to the climate in Germany. He was a member of both the Werkbund and the antisemitic Militant League for German Culture. He became a Reich Cultural Senator in 1935. He brought von Senger to the Bavarian Academy and designed buildings such as the Luftwaffe office building on the across the screen seen above, which were much praised at the time. However, he also designed a number of mostly Protestant churches, some of which met with official approval, and Hitler chose his design for the Mangfall Bridge, a girder bridge on two massive concrete pylons carrying one of the new autobahns, which was influential in its simple modernity and size. Bestelmeyer died in 1942 at the resort of Bad Wiessee. On Hitler's orders, his body was brought back to Munich and after lying in state in the Academy of Fine Arts, transferred for the state funeral to the light-court of the University of Munich which he had designed, with 300 members of the Hitler Youth in attendance.

Inside lying in storage is the guillotine with which the Scholl siblings were executed.

One casualty of the Luftgaukommando was the Hubertusbrunnen, built from 1903-1907 after a design by Adolf Hildebrand in the form of a covered temple. Inside was the actual fountain and the statue of a deer. St. According to the legend of Hubertus found a stag located in the well house carrying a cross between its antlers. It was originally located in front of the Bavarian National Museum but removed in 1937 and in 1954 re-established at its current location.

Demolition work on Hubertusbrunnen in Prinzregentenstraße March, 1937. The Hubertusbrunnen is now located in the west of Munich at the eastern end of the Nymphenburg canal.

Munich's Angel of Peace (Friedensengel) at the other end of Prinzregentenstr. during the Day of German Art and today. Just beyond is Hitler's Residence- Prinzregentenplatz 16

The residence in 1937 and today. This
was Hitler's residence which, from 1929, was paid for by Hitler's
publisher until a decade later when Hitler paid for it outright.
Hitler’s private apartment on the third floor of 16 Prinzregentenplatz
was located in an apartment house and consisted of nine living rooms,
two kitchens, two walk-in closets, two bathrooms, and furnishings.
Hitler’s patron, Hugo Bruckmann, had procured the apartment for him. The
annual rent was 4,176 marks. The term of the lease contract was first
to run until April 1, 1934, with a six-month term of notice. Hitler
moved into the apartment on October 1, 1929.The apartment had been furnished and decorated by Gerdy Troost, widow of architect Paul Ludwig Troost, a member of the Nazi Party and architectural advisor of Hitler. Hitler filled the apartment with works of art he had collected, particularly nineteenth century German paintings as well as German Old Masters. In 1925 Hitler brought his widowed half-sister Angela Raubal from Austria to serve as housekeeper for both his Munich apartment and his rented villa The Berghof. She brought along her two daughters, Geli and Friedl. Hitler became very close to his niece Geli Raubal, and she moved into his apartment in 1929, when she was 20. Their relationship is shrouded in mystery but was widely rumoured to be romantic. On September 18, 1931 she died of a gunshot wound in the apartment; the coroner proclaimed her death a suicide. Hitler was on his way to Erlangen to give a speech, but he returned immediately to Munich on hearing the news. He took her death very hard and went into a depression. He mourned her for years, maintaining her rooms exactly as they had been. Hitler continued to live in the apartment until 1934, when he became Führer and Reichskanzler of Germany. After that, Hitler kept the apartment, but spent most of his time either in Berlin or in his Berghof residence.

Angela
Maria Raubal,nicknamed “Geli”, was born on June 4, 1908 in Linz. She
was the daughter of the deputy head of the tax department, Raubal, and
his wife Angela, born Hitler (from the second marriage of Hitler’s
father, Alois). She studied singing in Munich, although her voice was
only average. When Hitler took up residence at Prinzregentenplatz No. 16
in 1929, she got her own room in the huge but sinister apartment of her
uncle. She committed suicide there on September 18, 1931. By the time
Hitler returned from an engagement in Nuremberg, her corpse had already
been removed. Hitler did not attend the funeral in Vienna but instead
retreated to the home of his publisher Müller at the Tegernsee. He spent
several days there in seclusion. His court photographer Heinrich
Hoffmann was the only one allowed to accompany him. Many feared the
shock of Geli’s unexpected death might lead him to commit suicide, too.
On the anniversary of his niece’s death on September 18, 1932, Hitler
secretly visited her grave in Vienna. Goebbels noted in his diary:
“Führer gone to Vienna for private visit. Nobody knows about it so that
there won’t be any crowds.” News of Hitler’s presence in Vienna leaked,
however, and led to many political rumours. On Hitler’s orders, Geli’s
room remained untouched. Before the war, he spent every Christmas Eve
there in sentimental reflection.

Hitler sometimes used the Munich apartment for high-level diplomatic
meetings. On September 25, 1937, he met there with Benito Mussolini when
he was trying to get Mussolini to agree to his plan to annex Austria to
Germany; the leaders agreed to a strengthening of their Axis pact.During their
hour-long summit conference, the German and Italian leaders agreed to
continue supporting Francisco Franco in Spain, to seek better relations
with Imperial Japan, and to oppose Franco-British policies that
prevented their joint expansion of power and territorial acquisitions—a
great strengthening of the Axis Pact of 1935 and the Anti-Comintern
(Communist International) Pact of 1936.
He also met with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in the
apartment on September 30, 1938, following the signing of the four-power
Munich Accords. On September 30, 1938, Hitler
hosted Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain at the apartment following
the signing of the four-power Munich Pact, but before the signing of the
Anglo-German Declaration that led Chamberlain to declare that he had
brought “peace for our time” home with honour from Germany.As for
Hitler, he later boasted to his intimates: “I saw our enemies at
Munich—they are little worms!” Because of the document signed in
Hitler’s apartment, Chamberlain mistakenly thought they’d guaranteed
European peace for a generation. Nazi Germany occupied the German
Sudetenland—taken from the Czechs—the next day.

Hitler looking out from the balcony.After
the American Army had entered Munich, it became the headquarters of an
American Section. The furnishings were removed and the Munich
Financing Office of the Land of Bavaria took up its quarters in the
building and today the third floor is actually police station. The second floor, Hitler's former apartment,
houses the headquarters of the regional police of Munich and is not open
to the public.When He Was 5, He Got a New Neighbour: Hitler The writer and historian Edgar Feuchtwanger grew up perhaps 100 yards from Adolf Hitler during the Nazi era, before escaping Germany.

Kunstbunker Tumulka

Down
the road on Prinzregentenstrasse 97, this was built in 1944 as a set of
flats surrounded by bunkers, one of which serves as the venue for contemporary art exhibitions.

Model of the apartment complex. In this May 1945 photo on the right one can see both Hitler's residence in the top centre and the apartment at the bottom-left.

The Wagner memorial on Prinzregentenplatz on the 50th anniversary of Wagner's death on February 11, 1933. Richard Wagner Year 1933 began with a violent debate after Thomas Mann had given a lecture on the composer, in which he spoke out against his one-sided heroic glorification and argued for a differentiated interpretation of his works. The violent protest of the Richard-Wagner-Stadt München promptly followed. Mann did not return to Germany; on the day he left Munich members of the Bayerische Volkspartei were represented at the monument- on the left is Culture Minister Dr. Franz Goldenberger as main speaker and Oberbürgermeister Karl Scharnagl (in the foreground wearing glasses).

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